Vignette or not

Browsing a random selection of portfolios I see that many photographers add a vignette to nearly all their images. It definitely draws the eye into the subject but from a buyer's point of view, I wonder how desirable it really is? It must be nearly impossible to remove a vignette successfully whereas adding one is simple enough and you get to control it exactly as you want. Just wondered what people's thoughts were on this.

You'd think so wouldn't you! But as you will have noticed they seem to sell well. As do highly saturated images with unfeasibly blue skies, which you would think would also be better left for the designer to saturate. In fact take a fairly standard landscape, saturate a little, add a vignette, and bingo - Vetta! (Have a look if you don't believe me.)


Perhaps the best test would be to upload a series, add a vignette to a few, and keep track of sales.

Some designers will work on neutral photos, others will want heavily processed ones. There is a market for everything, as long as it is cheap, of course.

I suspect that a good proportion of total sales are to non-designers who wouldn't be able to create a vignette. Equally (judging from posts here) many members cannot saturate images.

It's easy add nice vignetting to RAW image. With purchased JPG only ugly vignetting can be added easily.


 

One of my cameras (nominally, the Olympus XA) generates vignetting at all apertures. So it is natural that I leave it, but of course when I shoot, I must keep that in mind.


Marco